A huge gilt frame doubling as a proscenium arch encloses the action at the start of Garsington's superb production of Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress. Niki Turner's design supplies a powerful visual acknowledgement of the source of the opera in William Hogarth's cautionary tale told in his eight paintings of the same name that now hang in Sir John Soane's Museum in London. As presented by librettists W.H.Auden and Chester Kallman, however, the story deviates in important ways from the original, not least in the creation of the Mephistophelean figure of Nick Shadow, who assists Tom Rakewell (Robert Murray) in his downfall.

In a neat directorial touch, Olivia Fuchs involves this sinister 'servant' - impressively presented by the excellent baritone Christopher Purves - in an unscripted prelude. He pulls aside a black curtain to commence the drama - with much of the decadent menace of Cabaret's Emcee - thereby demonstrating from the very outset precisely who is calling the tunes here.

Rakewell's spoken wish for money without the tiresome need for work is instantly gratified by Shadow. He arrives at the country home of the Truloves to announce the convenient death of Tom's rich (and previously unknown) uncle, who has left a fortune to him. At once, Tom bids a perfunctory farewell to his faithful girl Anne Trulove (Sinéad Campbell), and sets off for London with his new companion, eager to spend, spend, spend.

Auden said it was his and Kallman's intention in the story to present a man "to whom the anticipation of experience is always exciting and its realisation in actual fact always disappointing". This is clearly illustrated in Tom's involvement first with the brothelkeeper Mother Goose (Phyllis Cannan), with her retinue of Roaring Boys and Whores, and later in his marriage to the astonishing bearded celebrity, Baba the Turk (superbly sung by Susan Bickley). Baba's plate-smashing fury at the bankrupt Tom's sale of her prized possessions - supervised by Christopher Gillett's droll auctioneer Sellem - is matched for surprising effect, perhaps, only by her considerable dignity at other times.

But this production shows very clearly, too, that the opera can be seen as a comparison between the simple delights of country life, typified by the wholesome Anne, and the life-sapping venality of the city, suggested in the spivvy business suits and bowler hats of those Roaring Boys. For the Garsington audience, whose sightlines encompass the glories of the manor's flower garden, this dichotomy can be eloquently presented in such scenes as that depicted above. Glad as he was to leave "the silly wood and the senseless park", the beaten Tom eventually concedes: "London has done all that it can to me."

Musically, the opera's neo-classical score harks back to the works of Mozart, and especially to Così Fan Tutte, which by coincidence also features in Garsington's summer programme. Its director, John Cox, was responsible for the memorable 1975 Glyndebourne production of The Rake's Progress, with designs by David Hockney, whose many revivals have helped to make the opera the most popular post-Puccini work of the 20th century. There is a new production next month at Covent Garden; it will have to be impressive indeed if it is to match the performance achieved at Garsington, with more modest resources, under conductor Martin André.

There are further performances of The Rake's Progress tonight and on Sunday, and again next Thursday and Sunday, July 6.